Some people have bag problems, some people have pen problems, some people have pencil problems. I have all of the above, but my main weakness is portfolios. I’ve tried a huge swath of them, from the super-inexpensive Lihit Labs “Bag in a Bag” to the pricier Bellroy A5 Zipfolio. The thing I love about portfolios is that you can own several of them and use them all, because they each come in various sizes and therefore have different use cases: a larger one that holds a legal or A4 pad to take to a meeting; an A5 portfolio that’s a bit more portable for journaling in a coffee shop or toting around your planner; or even smaller “pocket-sized” portfolios like the Nock Co. Hightower designed to hold a pocket notebook and a few pens. Portfolios slide easily into a bag, or if they have a zipper, you can carry them alone as your bag if you just want to grab something small and head out the door. Options truly are endless!

An overview of the A5 Zipfolio on my desk at work, complete with three pens and a Jibun Techo Planner System.

So what have I been using lately? Zeynep at Galen Leather was kind enough to send me one of their A5 Zipfolios in “Crazy Horse” brown leather, which is a rough-looking (in a good way) material that I’ve been lusting after for a long time. Though I love the pocket-sized Traveler’s-style notebook covers she sent me a couple years ago, Galen Leather has flown under my radar since and I’ve not taken the opportunity to explore their expanded product line. The company has absolutely exploded in popularity over the past few years. They’ve even begun to offer a range of wood products in collaboration with Walden Woodworkers’ Co., including a Writing Box and a Covered Pen Tray and other desk accessories.

The Zipfolio also comes with a removable keychain. Since the keys I carry are pretty bulky, I’m not sure how much use this particular feature will get, but it’s nice to have. The position of the keychain is such that they shouldn’t rub up against your pens as long as you keep them in the removable pen insert.

Another loadout from this week, where I threw in a highlighter, Airpods, and glasses cleaning cloth.

So let’s take a closer look at the Zipfolio, and what distinguishes it from other available options. For starters, a key attraction for me is the size. A5 notebooks are my personal sweet-spot, which I use for most writing both at work and at home. Other sizes will fit, however, including the Jibun Techo 3-in-1, which is my current primary journal/planner/notebook that I’ve been using since January. A few other attributes that make the Zipfolio a no-brainer recommendation for me include:

Sturdy Construction. Galen Leather’s take on the Zipfolio provides thick-yet-supple leather and a sturdy zipper for a relatively inexpensive $119. It may not be as polished or “corporate” looking as something from Bellroy, but that’s the aesthetic, and in any event you will get a ton of mileage out of this portfolio. If you tend to be rough on your leather products, go with Galen, and consider Crazy Horse leather, because it hides scratches well. Scuffs and dings are part of the look!

Practical Modular Layout. This portfolio strike a balance between customizability and capacity, on the one hand, and practicality on the other. It holds just enough stuff to allow you to use it as a true grab ‘n go daily carry without getting silly, like other modular systems I’ve seen where you can pack so much stuff into them that the portfolio not only becomes too fat but risks damage to your pens and other items because it’s so crammed full of stuff that rubs together. Here, you have seven elastic loops that are well spaced: four of them are attached to a removable panel and plainly intended for pens or mechanical pencils, with the other three larger and more versatile. As you can see from the pictures, I’ve used them to carry anything from highlighters to headphones/Airpods to a microfiber cleaning cloth.

Extra Space for Added Notebook Versatility. One drawback to the Bellroy A5 Workfolio was the relatively tight fit if you wanted to use a standard hardcover A5 notebook such as a Leuchtturm or a Midori. Since I don’t regularly use the slim softcover notebooks, the Galen Leather Zipfolio works better for me. (Galen Leather designs most of their products specifically to fit Leuchtturm, Baron Fig Confidant, Hobonichi Cousin A5, etc.) Even though it’s not A5, this Zipfolio fits my Jibun Techo well.

Versatile Left-Side Pocket. The Zipfolio is marketed as an “A5 Notebook and iPad Mini Folio”, with a lined pocket on the left-hand side that will protect small tablets such as a Kindle Fire 7 or an iPad Mini. While I might slide in a tablet for a trip, I think this would bulk up the Zipfolio too much in an everyday carry situation. Fortunately, the left-hand slot can also easily hold a pocket notebook, folded sheets of writing paper, or even a soft-cover notebook like the recently released Studio Neat Totebook!

A Brand with a Great Story. While I may not write about the people behind the products as much as the products themselves, Galen Leather has a compelling story. I won’t spoil it for you but please do make the time to read it. (Link here to their site.)

Zipfolio with the Jibun Techo open to the week-on-two-pages layout. This has been my go-to carry for work over the past few weeks.

The pen-holder insert is removable, if you don’t want to carry pens in your Zipfolio or just want to carry one or two pens in the larger loops.

Notebooks are easy to switch out. The back of the Zipfolio contains a soft leather flap, under which you insert the back cover of your notebook.

Galen Leather A5 Zipfolio, loaded up and ready to go!

Takeaways and Where to Buy

All Galen Leather products I have owned over the years have thoroughly impressed me, from Traveler’s-style notebook covers, to a 40-pen zippered album-style case, to this Zipfolio. What I really like about Galen’s overall product line is their rugged durability. Compared to the Bellroy Workfolio, the Galen Leather Zipfolio just feels more durable and a bit less fussy, even though Bellroy products are also designed to last and age better than most smooth leather. If you’re someone who obsesses over gouges and scratches on your smooth leather products, however (like yours truly), the Crazy Horse leather option is excellent.

To view their full range of goods, visit the Galen Leather website. They are a family-owned business located in Instanbul, Turkey, and many of their products are made to order, so shipping will not be immediate, but my Zipfolio did arrive fairly quickly. For those who would rather go a more familiar route, Galen Leather also maintains an Amazon store, and the A5 Zipfolio is one of the products featured there.

Disclaimer: I received the product featured in this review free of charge, for review purposes. This post contains affiliate links. Many thanks to Galen Leather for providing this product for review, and making this post possible!

Back in May, I offered my initial thoughts after spending five months with the Hobonichi Planner. For those of you unfamiliar with the Hobonichi, a quick recap; it's a bound notebook with dated pages that's sold and marketed as a planner, and many people use it for that purpose. Unlike most "planners," however, the Hobonichi uses the amazing fountain-pen friendly Tomoe River paper, and its pages aren't set up in such a way that precludes you from using the book as something other than a planner, such as a journal, commonplace book, life log, etc.

When I ordered my first Hobonichi in December 2015, I intended to use it as a journal, and for the most part that's what I've done, using it to jot down quotes, thoughts, accomplishments, significant events in my life - you get the idea. Using the Hobonichi's "single-page-per-day" format for journaling is a lot less intimidating than starting a journal in a blank book. It doesn't look "out of place" to fill up only a quarter of a page, and there were many uneventful days where I couldn't muster more than a few lines. I even allowed myself to miss some days entirely, though it didn't happen very often. When I did miss a day or left a page mostly blank, sometimes I'd come back and use the empty space (on that awesome paper) to jot down thoughts on a potential blog post, test an ink, etc.

So What's New?

Honestly, my first year with the Hobonichi was an experiment, and now that I know I that I like the Hobonichi format and have a use for this product, I've spent some more time thinking about how I'd like to use the book differently to maximize both my enjoyment and the utility. A few ideas that I plan to try out:

A planner for certain things. I'm going to continue to use the Hobonichi as a journal (or as much of a "journal" as I keep), but I also want to try to use it as more of a planner for certain specific things, such as the blog/website. (I tried this for a bit last year and liked it, but fell off the wagon about halfway through.) Another great feature of the Hobonichi is that it's basically three planners in one. The day-per-page section makes up the bulk of the pages, but the front of the book also contains a traditional month-on-two-pages section and a column-style layout with four months on two pages. The latter looks like it would be perfect for a blog editorial calendar. (See pictures of the various layouts below.)

More specificity. I also want to be a bit more active in writing things down. I spent some time over the holidays reading back through last year's entries, and was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it was to recall small details that I had completely forgotten about: the name of a restaurant where we had dinner on vacation, something hysterically funny my daughter said, little things, seemingly insignificant at the time, that would otherwise be lost if I hadn't taken 30 seconds to jot them down.

Lists. I like making comprehensive lists but I'm really bad at maintaining them over the long-term. It's been a goal of mine for a while to keep good running lists of books I've read and want to read, music I want to listen to, pens I've tried, various "wish lists," etc. The problem is that I start them in several different places and don't update them. At least some of these are going into the Hobonichi, which has 12 blank dot-grid pages at the back.

The common thread running through all of these "goals" is that most of them require that I carry the Hobonichi with me, if not all the time, certainly more than last year when it lived on my desk at home. Good thing it's extremely portable! I also invested in a canvas and plastic cover, so there's less concern about this small journal getting smashed up in a bag.

At some point I'd like to try Hobonichi products other than the A6 planner. There is a larger A5 size Hobonichi "Cousin," as well as a smaller "Hobonichi Weeks" version that is slim enough to slip into a jacket pocket. If you like the A6 size and layout but want a slimmer book, the original Techo is also sold in two volumes, called the "Hobonichi Avec."

A final note: The naming conventions of the various Hobonichi products can be somewhat confusing at first. The "Hobonichi Planner," which is what I own and what is pictured above, is the English-language version of the "Hobonichi Techo," the original A6 planner from Japan. To my knowledge, the Hobonichi Planner is the only English-language Hobonichi - all others are in Japanese - but that doesn't stop many non-Japanese speakers from using the Japanese versions. YMMV depending on how you want to use the book, so be warned before you order anything other than the English-language planner.

Disclaimer: I purchased the product featured in this review with my own funds, for my own use. This post contains affiliate links.

I wanted to take a moment to post separately about one of the products featured in the recently updated 2016 Holiday Gift Guide: the DJOT Bookmark Planner. DJOT describes its product as a "Minimum Viable Planner" that uses a dot-based to-do system in a vertical format (suitable for a bookmark). I've been testing the DJOT system out, and while my schedule is too complex for me to be able to use the DJOT as my sole calendaring tool, I've found it very useful to keep one of their bookmarks tucked into my notebook as a quick reference. I've been using the DJOT Planner to track big items like project completion deadlines and my travel schedule. I'd highly encourage you to check them out.

Where to Buy

The DJOT Bookmark Planner immediately struck me as a perfect stocking-stuffer for planner junkies/avid readers. The bookmarks are printed on heavy stock that should hold up well, and mine handled a rather wet fountain pen with very little feathering. They're also reasonably priced: you can get a set of 2017 monthly bookmarks for $5 CAD. Purchase directly through DJOT's website here.

Disclaimer: I was sent this product by Djot for review purposes free of charge.

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